Queen of Thorns
by Sera dy Relandrant
Summary: What if Margaret Beaufort took the crown for herself, in place of her son Henry VII, after the Battle of Bosworth? "They say she is more queen than woman, more saint than queen." He laughed bitterly. "She is no woman indeed. She is a devil."
1. The Four Infantas

_These prayers will save her immortal soul-despite her true deserts-for, as it happens, my prayers are especially blessed. Ever since I was a little girl, ever since I was five years old, I have known myself to be a special child in the sight of God. For years I thought this was a unique gift-sometimes I would feel the presence of God near me; sometimes I would sense the blessing of Our Lady._

**The Red Queen - Philippa Gregory **

_Beyond her, his flint-faced mother, Margaret Beaufort, watched the young couple with a__ glimmer of a smile. This was England's triumph, this was her son's triumph, but far more__ than that, this was her triumph—to have dragged this base-born bastard family back from__ disaster, to challenge the power of York, to defeat a reigning king, to capture the very throne__ of England against all the odds. This was her making. It was her plan to bring her son back__ from France at the right moment to claim his throne. They were her alliances who gave him__ the soldiers for the battle. It was her battle plan which left the usurper Richard to despair on__ the field at Bosworth, and it was her victory that she celebrated every day of her life._

**The Constant Princess - Philippa Gregory**_  
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**1493  
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They are the four Infantas, the daughters of the valiant King of Aragon and the virtuous Queen of Castile. On the marble floors of the Alhambra, patterned with golden stars and silver flowers, they sprawl like Moorish sultanas. Their hair spills from the ivory combs that hold them in place, beneath the sheath of their lace mantillas - the widowed Isabella's golden-red, beautiful Juana's copper, bird-boned Maria's carrot-coloured curls and little Catalina's auburn.

On a polished tray of black stone, crystal cups hold iced sherbets and chilled juices. It is the hour of the siesta and the time of tales.

"_Must _we hear of Santa Margarita again?" Juana asked. She rolled her eyes for effect.

"Queen," eleven-year-old Maria corrected her, pedantically. "Queen Margaret. Not saint."

"Not yet at least," eight-year-old Catalina said. "But soon. She is more saint than woman, isn't that what the Holy Father said of her, Isabella?"

Twenty-three-year old Isabella smiled fondly at her youngest sister. "More saint than queen," she said. "More queen than woman."

Thirteen-year-old Juana giggled. "Of a surety there is very little of the woman in the Queen of England," she said, when her sisters turned to stare at her. "When I see her portrait, I am more moved to say of her that she is more gaunt-faced sow than woman!"

"_Juana_," Catalina cried, shocked. She had already come to revere the woman who was her betrothed's grandmother. Queen Margaret of England was known to all of Christendom as one of the saintliest and purest of women - very like her cousin, Henry, who had been the last of the Lancastrian kings. "You can't-"

"Blaspheme?" Juana sniffed. "She is yet a woman and an ugly woman at that and so I can still what I want about her, thank Heavens."

Isabella looked at her sourly. "Vanity-" she began unctuously.

"-is a virtue," Juana answered, "for those who have a right to be vain." She raised her cup, light sparkling off the crystal and dancing in her dark eyes, and sipped the watermelon juice. "And I am sure I have the greatest right to be vain."

"Your beauty will profit you little," Isabella replied coldly. "It is of earth. It will perish and then what will remain?"

"Beautiful memories, the best of memories," Juana answered. "And beautiful children - they call Prince Philip the Handsome, do they not?" She smiled and leaned back against her bolster. It was white, embroidered with the bleeding pomegranates of Spain, and her copper hair tumbled over it. "Yes, the prince and I will have very beautiful children - indeed how I pity you, Isabella. Widowed without a son."

Isabella's pale eyes flashed.

"Tell us about Queen Margaret," Maria said. "Tell us the story about the army that she blessed."

"Oh yes!" Catalina cried eagerly. "I think it's the best one and you tell it so well, Isabella!"

Isabella smiled, mollified. "Lina-Alina-Catalina," Juana sang. "I suppose my pity ought to extend to _you_ as well. You shall be the sainted sow's little doll. You will sleep in her chambers like a serving maid, like your mother-in-law, the York Princess. You will walk a step behind her and mewl and simper as she requires you to."

"I'd rather be a serving maid under Queen Margaret than the Empress of a godless court!" Catalina snapped. "And I don't care what you say - you'll regret it someday because-"

"Oh yes, Our Lord will punish me for my blasphemies," Juana said. She rose lazily. She stretched, slim and languorous, and yawned. "Better a couch and sweet, sweet dreams than those dreary tales again," she said, strolling off with her characteristic swagger. She rolled her hips as she walked, every step a seduction.

"Temptress," Isabella said, through gritted teeth. "I hope her husband sees fit to whip her night and day - if _I_ was our lady mother-"

"Madre has more important things to do than see to a wayward girl," Maria reminded her. She sighed, disconsolate for a moment - the girls had not seen their mother for over a week. Then she resumed on the topic that sisters loved best - criticizing other sisters. "But I do think that Juana is the _most_-"

"The story," Catalina said impatiently. She knew from experience that by the time Isabella and Maria were through with Juana - _how insolent, how prideful, as though her beauty will do her much good in Heaven! That is if she ever makes it to Heaven - _it would be time for her lessons.

"Which one would you like? There are so many of them."

And there were - Queen Margaret, matriarch of the House of Beaufort, was the bards' darling. She was not the type of woman to fire imaginations - neither fair maiden nor vulnerable damsel, but the women loved the songs about her. She might be a saint, she was a queen but she was a woman also - a woman, not beautiful, but strong, fearless. A woman who had won. _The victory of virtue over beauty, _Queen Isabella called it. She revered the sainted English Queen and had tried to teach her daughters to do the same - with little success in lovely Juana's case, but much success in little Catalina's.

"The one about Bosworth?" Isabella, whose sweet face belied her love of warfare and passion for spilt blood (Moorish blood, of course, never Christian. "About how her son, Prince Henry of Wales, lay the usurpers' crown at her feet after the battle was won and knelt to acknowledge her the rightful queen?"

"It was the only thing he _could_ have done," Maria maintained. "Her claim was stronger than his as the Tudors had no right to the throne at all. It was her allies and her cunning in directing the battle that saved the prince. And then of course she has the weight of years and experience behind her - the prince was scarcely more than a boy then. When he will be king, he will be older and wiser."

"I don't like the ones with wars in them," Catalina said. "I think I've seen enough of war." She was only eight years old, but she had been born in a soldiers' camp and grown up on the campaign trail, besides blood and corpses.

"What about the one where she rode at the head of her army as they marched against the Scots?"

"War again!" Catalina complained. "And you always make it sound _so_ gory."

"There is some gore in war," Isabella admitted. "Does it frighten you, little sister? It should not - you are a soldier's daughter and one day you too must march against the infidels and root them out with sword and fire." Her eyes shone as she spoke - she believed every single word that she said. Her dearest wish was to have been born a son, not so that she could wear her father's crown but so that she could wield a sword, to kill.

"What about the one in which she blessed the army that the Holy Father asked her for?" Maria suggested. "Remember, the one in which she sent but a handful of soldiers but since they had _her _blessing, they triumphed against the heretics?"

"Oh yes!" Catalina said, her eyes shining.

Isabella leaned back and began. "She was but a woman," she said, "but she was more saint than woman and so..."


	2. The Spanish Princess

**1501**

_Souvent me souviens._

_I remember often._

She wears the severest of widow's weeds and hair shirts beneath, but she must have pomp and grandeur wherever she goes. _  
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The pillars of the her private closet are richly painted and gilded and topped by fantastic beasts - the dragons of Wales, unicorns of the Scots, Plantagenet griffins, Mortimer's white lions and the yales of Beaufort. They writhe in pain like so many sinners on the fiery racks of hell, tortured and twisted, grim and gaunt and grotesque. They are stone and marble but their faces are strikingly, disorientingly human in their pain. Beautiful, yes, but monstrous, perverted.

_All beauty is so - perverse. Grotesque. Sinful. Best that you see it for what it is now, Arthur, least you come to pain later.  
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Apricot-coloured light filters through the leaded panes of the lancet windows. Coloured leather lozenges pattern the walls. They are stamped with the white roses of York, the red roses of Lancaster and the great red-and-white rose that is the symbol of the Tudors. A nimbus of pale light shines about her bowed head as she kneels in prayer. The Queen of England bows only to the King of Heaven.

"Arthur," she says, when she is done. She rises and shuts her illuminated Book of Hours. Something like a smile, but not quite so warm, nor so welcoming, flits over her face. "My prince." Fifteen-year-old Arthur, the Duke of Cornwall, kneels before her to receive her blessing.

"Sit, child," she says and he sits on a cushioned footstool while she takes the only chair in the room - the high-backed chair of carved ebony under the royal canopy. Being the eldest, he is her favourite grandchild - the rest of the children follow in her prayers in order of their age. Margaret, who bears her face, her name and something of her nature, is second. Wilful, high-spirited Henry is third and little Mary last of all. She does not favour the younger two much - Henry's wild ways are not to her taste and she has already decided that he will need a thorough breaking in at the hands of the Church. Mary is little more than a babe out of the nursery, too young to be wedded and bedded. And then, besides that, she is a pretty child, as pretty as her mother.

_Beware the fair face, Arthur. It will tempt you to sin and undo you. _

Sometimes Arthur thinks that she despises all pretty women on principle - because she herself was born hatchet-faced and with the hooded eyes and temper of a dragoness.

"Your young bride shall be brought to us today," she says, watching him closely. "Taken a long time about this coming, haven't they?"

He nods. The original contract had been that Catalina should be sent to England after she had reached womanhood, to be bred at the Tudor court. Yet the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile had dithered and dallied for five years and it was only now that they were sending the Infanta. Their reason had been that they could not bear to part with Catalina, their youngest and loveliest, but the truth had been that they were open to other options. _Shows what they think of us, _Arthur thought dryly. _They might call my lady grandmother a saint on earth but they cannot forget that she is only a woman and our dynasty new-come. Hardly a bargain to wed a daughter of Castile and Aragon to us. _

"Is the thought of marriage pleasing to you?"

He blushes.

"They are," she says, with a grimace. "No matter. You are young yet and... pleasure when found in lawful and holy matrimony cannot be a sin." Her voice is acrid. "Though I never found it a pleasure."

He pours forth the compliments that he knows will please her. "You are too virtuous for that, Lady Grandmother," he says. "Marital pleasures sate only lesser beings, common swine - you could find your pleasure only in prayer and fasting. Is not that as it should be?" She was so frigid and formidable - he wondered how his grandfather had ever dared bed her. Only cold stone and starvation could bring such a woman any pleasure.

_Perhaps that is the beginning of virtue. _

The same ghost of a smile flits over her face. "You were always a good boy, Arthur," she says. "Your wits are as fair as your face, though I always did say you were lacking in piety... well, no matter. Men sin worse than women. It is their birthright and why should I complain if Elizabeth of York's son has something of her father in him?" She purses her lips but continues, "No matter. You will make a fair king, perhaps nothing miraculous... but fair enough. Much like your noble father. Your Spanish bride ought to thank Our Lord on her knees for giving her such a husband. I had saints' knees by the time I was nine, did I ever tell you?"

_Yes, you told me when _I_ was nine and then chastised me in front of the whole court for my lascivious and unprincely ways since I had no worn-out knees to show you. _"I believe so, My Lady Grandmother," he says pleasantly.

"Blue eyes and red-gold hair," she continues. "She is more English than Spanish. Pretty enough. The people will love her." Her voice is flinty and her eyes narrow as she looks at him, "More than pretty, I should say. A little beauty, is she not? We saw her portrait. You seemed quite taken with her, as I recollect."

"Portraits lie," he replies indifferently. "What is it to whiten the skin or to will away a few sorry pockmarks? Blue eyes are fine enough, but not even the bonniest of eyes can make a foul face fair."

The Queen smiles, contented.

_Good boy, Arthur. Good dog, Arthur._

"You are wise beyond your years," she says. "I had feared that you would turn out... licentious. Or worse, passionate."_ Like your grandfather who was led astray by that Woodville witch._ "There are some sad stories of men who felt most ungovernable passions for women. To their undoing."

_Does it rankle in your heart that my mother's mother was a woman like that, and you were not? Your court was once hers. Did you fear that she would steal it from you a second time, when you condemned her to that bleak abbey? _

"Repulsive, really. But you have a good head on your shoulders. Yet still, you ought to be wary. Of enchantments."

"Enchantments?" he repeats, blinking. "Isabella of Castile's daughter a witch? But the Pope calls her _Isabel la Católica_!" _Isabel, our most beloved daughter. Margaret, our most beloved daughter. Does it rankle that the Queen of Castile is moulded of the same fire and metal as yourself? Queens, both of you, who forged their way where men and angels dared not tread. _

"I did not term her a witch," she says coldly.

_Though you wanted to, no doubt, and you would do so at the slightest provocation._

"But she is a young maid, and fair - she will be full of a maiden's tricks. They raised her in a Moorish palace - she will be full of vile, heathen wiles and her father is a fox, if ever there was one... he will have had a hand in raising her." She scowls. "You will have to break her in. Thoroughly. Teach her to mind, teach her where her place is. Give her an inch and she will take a mile."

He hesitates, before voicing an objection. His grandmother does not take kindly to objections. "Her letters-"

"Were dictated to her by her tutor, as were yours to her," the Queen snorted.

He blushes and looks away. For eight years they had been forced to write to eachother once a month. At first it had been a chore - writing the letters was actually an exercise in Latin and penmanship -, then a duty and in the last few months a pleasure. "She has a gentle face." He noticed her frown and quickly added, "The face of a flower. The heart of a serpent."

She nodded and continued. "You will get her with child soon. You are young and lusty, I presume, and if they have sent us barren stock-" Her face twisted. "If they have sent us barren stock, we will shame them before Christendom and send the girl back to them, neither virgin nor wife."

"We are young yet," Arthur said. "Why must we have a child so soon?"

"Our dynasty is young yet," she answered. "Your mother has given your father only two sons. Henry and you are our only heirs, our roses. The only hope that England has."

Arthur thought about his little brother scratching his hair and picking at his nose as he often did at private suppers, when their parents and their lady grandmother was not present. _Our only hope for England indeed, _he thought dryly.

"You are the Duke of Cornwall and when your first son is born he will be made the Duke of Richmond."

"That's Harry," Arthur objected. "Harry's the Duke of Richmond."

"For now," his grandmother replied. "When _your_ son is born, we will send your brother to the Church - he sadly needs the discipline."

_And of course you promised God one of your grandsons. I suppose we'll have to make Harry Archbishop of Canterbury. A cardinal, perhaps. You want to make him Pope too, don't you? The first English Pope since Nicholas Breakspeare. How grand. His first order as Pope will be to authorize jousting in place of Mass.  
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"I was toying with idea of sending you back to Wales - but no. It is bitter cold now and your Spanish bride is but new to a harsh clime."

He was surprised at her consideration.

"If you get her with child, she might lose the babe due to the inclemency of the elements. And miscarrying her first child might harm the others to come."

_Oh. _

"Besides, I will need you under my eye - see how you take to the girl." There is a gleam in her eyes - a jealous gleam.

"I will take to her as a man takes to a new filly," he answers. "Sugar lumps if she will let herself be gentled, the whip and spur if she will not." He wonders whether his grandfather had ever thought of doing the same to his grandmother. She had been only twelve when she had been wed to Edmund Tudor but even as a child she must have been more frightening than most grown women - or men, come to think of that.

"Good. So your father and your fair mother will hie themselves to Wales. Perhaps they might make a new brother for you. There's little else to do but make babes during a Welsh winter - the nights are so long and bedwarmers so welcome." _Perhaps she might die. Childbed or the cold. We might broker a new marriage for Henry. And in any case I have let that woman corrupt the children for too long. They will be better watched when she is away._ "And your father will do well to see to the North."

_Scotsmen and raiders, outlaws and barons with their own little armies, _he thinks and is grateful that it is not _him _being sent away to watch Wales. _  
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"I expect that she will be carrying your child by summer - midsummer at latest. When we know for certain, you will go to Wales."

"The Infanta?"

"What about her?"

"Will she not go with me?"

His grandmother's eyes widen in horror. "Whatever for?"

He hesitates. "We are to be man and wife..."

"Do you ever listen to anything I say?" she says irritably. "She will be with child when you are sent to Wales - what possible use could you have for her then? If the babe is a girl, we will send her to you as soon as she is churched. If it is a boy you will see her again in a few years, I suppose, though if the child proves sickly we might need to send her to you before that."

_A brood mare, this and nothing more. _He smiles. "So she will be under your eye?"

The Queen nods grimly. "Certainly. I do not trust to the breaking in you will give her, Arthur - you are too gentle. Much like your namesake." She frowns. "If he had been a proper man he would have burnt his queen at the stake. Fair Guinevere indeed!"

"All fair women are so," he says. "Vain, presumptuous, ignorant, devious, unchristian. Witches."

She smiles. "It pleases me that we are of one mind."

* * *

><p>From the roof of the palace he could see all of London, spread out like a fool's motley in gay greens and blues and golds at his feet. The wind whipped at his hair and clothes and brought a smile to his lips. Idly, he toyed with the idea of getting a painter to paint a portrait of London herself.<p>

_She wears a fairer face than that of any woman, _he thought. _What vanity to paint simpering women who will wither away in a few short years. This woman, my woman, will never fade. _

His closest friend, Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Thomas, spoke. "She is at Lambeth Palace?"

It took him a moment to realize that Gruff was talking about Catalina of Aragon. His lovely bride. Of course. "Yes," he said absently.

"A lusty bridegroom to be sure," Gruff said dryly.

He smiled. "A very timid bridegroom," he confessed. "I scarcely know what to do."

Gruff's eyebrows rose but loyal friend that he was, he only said, "Well we could fix that up at Haresfield tonight."

He laughed. "Would you have me whore after I have danced at tonight's banquet with my bride?" The thought struck him as absurd - to laugh with a lady and then to dawdle a whore in one night. "No, I think I know enough about a woman to-to-" He blushed as Gruff grinned.

"Mayhap I might coach the Spanish Princess in the ways of love in your place," he teased. "Stafford met her at Dogmersfield and by God, he says she's a very Helen, ripe to be stolen and ravished."

_He'd know, that one, _Arthur thought. _He's a connoisseur of horseflesh and woman's flesh. _

"They've bred her in the Moorish arts," he continued.

_Oh? _Arthur thought, deeply interested. He waited patiently, hoping to hear something interesting.

"She wore a veil of silk like they do in the East, but she whipped it off, half-coy, half-bold, when he came before her. And then she blushed prettily and said she thought it was her prince come to carry her off. Stafford says he never saw anything more enchanting - beauty can be bought, he said, but not so charm." Gruff grinned. "Mayhap I won't need to coach the Princess in the ways of love - perhaps she is skilled enough to do it for me."

Arthur laughed politely but misgivings stirred in him. _Bold and coy at once, _he thought. _Isabella of Castile's daughter trained in Moorish arts? As charming as she is beautiful? Dear God, what is this girl made of? _

* * *

><p>Gilded were the walls and gilded the floors of the Infanta's chamber. Gold were the roses carved on the woodwork, gilt the roses sculpted on the airy columns, glass were the roses painted on the stained glass. Silver were the pomegranates broidered on the rich tapestries, silk the pomegranates stitched on the soft carpets, steel the pomegranates engraved on her hairbrushes and jewellery chests.<p>

Gold and silver, gilt and silk, glass and steel was the girl they called a woman as she stood before the looking glass. She wore velvet, black because it was Queen Margaret's favourite colour. A constellation of glass shards glittered on the wide skirt and the narrow bodice. The sleeves were slashed to reveal the cloth-of-silver chemise underneath. Her long hair had been left in a child's plait for the moment because they had not come to an agreement about the choice of headdress.

Dona Elvira would tell her that she saw no girl. She would tell her that she saw a proud daughter of the House of Trastámara, a princess as beautiful as Guinevere of Camelot but more chaste. She would say that she saw Isabella of Castile's daughter. A princess, a bride, an alliance, an empire - everything but the frightened girl who still peeped out from behind those blue eyes lined by black and gold.

Catalina steeled herself and turned to her ladies.

"I look well," she said coolly, secretly hoping that they would reassure her that she looked more than well, that she looked magnificent. But she must not appear to be vain. That was a sin. "I hope the Queen will be pleased."

"Don't hope for it," sour Dona Elvira warned her. "She's prickly and finicky and nothing ever suits her - or if it does, she won't mention it. If she were _anyone_ else she would- but there. You look well, Infanta."

Maria de Salinas, Catalina's dearest friend, laughed. "Just well, Dona Elvira? You are ravishing, Catalina."

"Luminous," plump, little Margarita de Enriquez said.

"A feast to the senses-"

"A bouquet to fan the passions-"

"Let us hope the prince's lust is as red as the roses that he wears-" said Alita de Castillo, the lowest-born of the maids of honor, who fancied herself very clever.

"_Ladies_," Dona Elvira said sharply. "Such talk is not seemly, not maidenly. There is nothing more becoming on young maids than silence."

"I would say," Alita said reflectively. "That _nothing _is most becoming on a young maid."

Catalina giggled. "Not so, Alita," she said reprovingly. "That would leave nothing to the imagination and that'd be a pity, I'd say."

Alita flashed her an impish smile. "Let's see what your prince has to say. Would he prefer anything left to his imagination? _I_ would not if I were the merry bridegroom in his place."

Dona Elvira was sorting through Catalina's headdresses for a suitable one for her presentation to the Queen. Tonight, she would be officially presented before the whole court and after that there would be a state banquet, open to the public. All of London, nay, all of England was curious to see the Duke of Cornwall's Spanish bride. It would be just like an exhibition and Catalina would be the quaint and curious beast exposed to the general gaze.

"No," Catalina said immediately, as Dona Elvira emerged with a fluffy mass of white lace. "Not a mantilla. Not tonight."

Dona Elvira looked stern. "What will you have, Infanta?"

"A gable hood such as the Princess of Wales wears. Perhaps a round hood such as the younger ladies of the court wear," she said. "Or no - I think it would be best if I wore the barbet and fillet that the Queen wears. I think we have one - I had it specially ordered." She pictured herself in the severe headdress the Queen of England wore. To be sure, it was not becoming but perhaps the Queen would approve. Perhaps she would see that Catalina was not a frivolous young girl at all, that she was made of sterner stuff.

"Infanta, you cannot be serious!" Dona Elvira was openly glowering at her. Under other circumstances, Catalina would have backed down but tonight she stood firm. She was a Princess of Spain and England and she would not cower in front of a mere lady-in-waiting.

"I _can _be serious, Dona Elvira," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. Alas, it was not very much - Catalina had always been tiny and at sixteen, she stood only five feet tall. Her only consolation was that the Queen was even smaller than her. And besides - there were things called heels too. Lovely things, them.

Dona Elvira sniffed as though she doubted it. "You are an Infanta of Aragon and Castile," she hissed. "You are not yet an Englishwoman, Infanta, though you pretend it."

"I will be in a week's time!"

"Oh aye," the woman agreed. "A week is a long time, yet, and things happen, Infanta, _things_ happen..."

Maria raised an eyebrow. "What kind of things?" she asked.

Dona Elvira scowled at her. "Never you mind, girl," she snapped. "The Infanta is a daughter of Spain, not a wife of England yet, and so she must dress." She thrust the mantilla at Catalina.

Catalina thrust it back at her. "I will _not _appear to the court like a Spaniard," she said stubbornly. "It would be so rude, so disrespectful."

"No," Dona Elvira snapped. "It would appear dignified. If you turn up at court as an Englishwoman, with your tail between your legs, they will laugh and wonder if this can be Isabella of Castile's daughter and-"

"You _dare_?" Catalina hissed, stepping forwards. Automatically Dona Elvira backed down. "You dare question that I am my mother's daughter? I will have you shipped back to Spain and into a dungeon!"

_Redheads and their tempers. Princesses and their tempers, _Alita thought, smoothing her dark hair and wondering again why she had been born only a knight's daughter. _Spoiled brat, _she thought, _I'd like to ship _her _back to Spain and into a dungeon! _

"Your Grace," she said politely, stepping between the white-faced Dona Elvira and the red-faced Catalina. "Perhaps I can offer a compromise?"

Catalina turned towards her sulkily. "I will not wear a mantilla or a net or a snood or a-"

"You might leave your hair open," Alita suggested.

Catalina and Dona Elvira and all the maids turned to stare at her. In Spain they had seldom covered their hair but in England it was mandatory.

Dona Elvira was the first to recover. "It would not be seemly," she parroted. "Not seemly at all."

"Just this one time," Alita said smoothly. "At your first public appearance, what could be more right or proper? To leave your hair open and uncovered would show you to be the maiden you are. And it _is _a maiden they want, don't they?"

Catalina nodded slowly.

"Perhaps with your jewelled chaplet," Alita continued. She was impressed with herself. _Perhaps my gentle princess will make me Mistress of her Wardrobe in time to come. _"The one enamelled with orange blossoms?"

If Dona Elvira had been the whistling-type of woman she would have whistled. "What a clever idea, child! As virginal as the orange blossoms of a bride's bouquet."

Maria had already began to untangle Catalina's hair from the tight plait, Margarita and another Maria to rummage through her boxes for the required chaplet.

"Help me put it on, Alita," Catalina said gaily. She was just like a little girl, sunshine one moment, storm the other. Fierce and sweet and blisteringly unbearable.

Alita smiled sweetly and began to arrange the chaplet in her princess's hair. "You have beautiful hair," she said sincerely, for it was true. It reached to her knees, thick and soft and auburn. But then, everything about Catalina was beautiful - except for her character, of course. "Margarita," she called, "Hand me-"

"The orange-blossom fragrance," Margarita said, beaming. "Of course."

"Of course not," Alita said. "We have dressed her for the Queen. Now we must dress her for the grandson - the rose one. It will be more sensuous."

Catalina looked uncertain. "Is that entirely-"

_Don't say seemly, _Alita prayed.

"-Seemly?"

Dona Elvira was rubbing off on her.

"It is, Your Grace," she said. "You must remember that you are not to be wed to Queen Margaret, but to Prince Arthur. It is his pleasure, his desires that you must think of." She felt rather like she was tutoring a courtesan.

"How clever of you, Alita," Dona Elvira said acidly. "Pray where did you learn such clever tricks?"

"You would not like the answer, My Lady," Alita said as she gave Catalina's hair a final brushing. "There - you are lust personified, Infanta."

"Or Vanity," Catalina murmured. "Thank you, Alita. Come. It is time." Slim and stately, she rose and Alita backed away and fell into line with the other ladies. She was back in her place - a dutiful lady-in-waiting - while Catalina assumed her place as Princess.

* * *

><p>"Catalina de Aragón de Trastámara y Trastámara, Infanta of Aragon and Castile!" the herald called out.<p>

She walked towards the throne, head held high and chin thrust out. _Be proud_, she told herself, _proud. _Her hair fanned out behind her, auburn and gold, copper and bronze and a thousand rich tints of fire and sunset under the torchlight. _Remember who you are_, her mother's voice whispered to her. She walked slowly, deliberately, looking neither to the right, nor to the left, but only straight ahead. She saw nothing, singlemindedly she put one small, slippered foot in front of the other and focussed on not tripping.

And finally the journey, the long, long journey that had begun so many years ago and so many miles away was over. She knelt before the throne of England and before the formidable woman who had shaped the world to suit herself.

"Your Majesty," she said and then she felt two hands on her shoulders, raising her up. She felt a papery kiss on her cheek and two dark eyes burning into her own.

"Be welcome to our court, Catalina of Aragon," the Queen said. "Be welcome as our fair daughter."

A cheer went up and then it was all noise and more noise and perhaps words too... she felt herself asking for permission to present her ladies. It was granted graciously - _she seems so tall, but she is shorter than even me_, she thought for a moment that blurred into another - and then there were her ladies, as bright as a flock of peacocks, pretty and preening, names and faces that blurred together and smiles too...

Elizabeth of York with her face as lovely and empty as cool, sculpted marble... the Prince of Wales who was his mother all over again... the three red-haired children_ - my sons will all have red hair..._

She had just begun to recover her dazed wits when the Queen said, "And last of all, your betrothed - our beloved Prince Arthur."

She sank into a deep curtsey and bowed and when they rose, his lips brushed her fingers. He winked at her when they were close but after he'd drawn away, his face became like his mother's - cool and inscrutable. She had not had time to see what colour his eyes were or whether he was handsome at all. _Maria will be cross with me, _she thought vaguely. _She hoped his eyes would be blue._

"We will dine now," the Queen said imperiously and took Catalina's arm. Arthur covered his confusion quickly and dropped back in the line. He took his sister Margaret's arm while Harry gallantly offered little Mary his own arm. His father was with his mother, of course.

_How well we are paired, _Arthur thought dryly. _I wonder how my lady grandmother will pair us when Catalina bears a child. Perhaps I shall be permitted to take my bride's arm when that happy occassion arises and my lady grandmother will offer her arm to the newest addition to our family._ They began to walk.

"She's pretty," Margaret whispered, looking up at him.

"Jealous?" he whispered back at her.

Margaret grimaced. "No, but our lady grandmother is."

"She received the Infanta most graciously," he said.

"That's how I can tell she's jealous," Margaret said. "If she liked her, she'd be rude."

He laughed quietly. "D'you like her too?" He'd scarcely had time to look at her - but Margaret was quicker at this type of thing. She read people as he read books._ Bold and coy at once, _he remembered. "Did she seem..." he hesitated and then said. "Bold?"

Margaret looked puzzled. "She seemed rather shy," she said. "Frightened-like. Of course," she said, judiciously. "If I were in her place, I'd be too."

"You'll be in her place before long, little sister," he said sagely. "You're twelve now and they'll make a marriage for you soon. Then they'll send you away to make sons with a fat, ugly, old man with a crown on his head."

"Might be I'll be lucky," she said cheerfully. "You were lucky. Father was lucky."

"Ah, but we're _men_," Arthur said lazily. "Princes get pretty wives but princesses have to be content with whatever they get - and grateful that it's no worse. Like our lady grandmother."

Margaret said nothing but her face said, _Our Lady Grandmother probably enjoyed it. She must have considered it a penance. _They both knew how much their grandmother loved penances.


	3. A Wedding and a Bedding

**A/N: I've added a few changes to the last chapter. **

_Fireflower. _

He smiled and handed the paper back to the silk-and-velvet page who had delievered it.

"Secret missives from the bride to the bridegroom?" his cousin, Maurice St John teased him. Maurice was the Queen's favourite nephew and had been his playfellow for years.

"Hardly," he replied. "It's from Her Grace." He nodded to the page and said, "Will you deliever a message from her to me?"

The boy was young, as young as Harry - and quite as dramatic it seemed. He swept a low bow and cried, "I am yours to command, Your Highness!"

"To the very death?" he asked solemnly. Wistfully he remembered his childhood, playing knights-and-monsters and dragons-and-damsels with Maurice, Gruff and Thomas. 'To the very death' had been one their catchphrases - though Maurice had liked 'Off with your head!' better.

"To the very death, my prince," the boy said, with equal solemnity. Gruff and Maurice were grinning now as though they could tell what he had in mind.

Arthur bent forwards and kissed his cheek. "There," he said. "Will you deliever that message from me to Her Grace?"

The boy turned pale. Arthur laughed and tousled his hair. "I won't hold you to that pledge," he said. "Run along now." The boy obeyed - swiftly. _If only I could chase Harry away this easily, _he thought resentfully. His little brother was a plague.

Thomas Howard was leaning over him, reading the word on the paper. "Fireflower?" he asked, puzzled.

"Fireworks," he explained. "I used to call them that when I was a child." He didn't elaborate when Thomas continued to look politely puzzled. The story was too... personal.

He could not have been more than three or four at the time, for it was his first memory. It must have been shortly after his betrothal too. There'd been a feast - perhaps they'd won a northern skirmish, perhaps they'd lopped a traitor's head - at night and the sky had burst into flame. He had been frightened but his grandmother had held his hand and told him to be brave. Her stern face had been soft and gentle and she'd told him that those were fireflowers blooming in the sky, that they couldn't hurt him and that he was not to be afraid but to enjoy their beauty. After that it'd be alright and he'd been quite sorry when the show had ended. He'd asked her if they could have fireflowers at his wedding too and she'd smiled and said they might, if he was a good boy.

_Perhaps I've been a good boy. _

Today was the morning of his wedding day. He'd been dolled up as prettily as a girl, in shining silk and brocade, with a jewelled sword at his hip and a plumed cap on his bright hair. He looked into the mirror and saw a fairytale prince. Little girls - princesses and peasants alike - dreamt of marrying princes like him. They dreamt of songs and roses, pretty words and sweet kisses. Then they grew up and their fathers married them off.

They married hard men, like his father, or soft men under hard women's thumbs, like him. They married dashing men, like Thomas, who lived for blood or cravens with triple chins, like Maurice. They married men old enough to be their grandfathers or young men who smelt like worse. They married fools or, what was worse, wise men. They swore to love and cherish rogues and to keep their faith to traitors and turncoats. They smiled and bowed and simpered under men who were not fit to scrape their shoes.

_A bad world for little girls, _he thought, thinking about his sister, Margaret. _Catalina of Aragon ought to be bloody grateful she's getting me. _

"Let's hope the bridegroom's not prettier than the bride," Thomas quipped. Thomas had the dashing good looks of a soldier and women swooned over him. Arthur looked like a mooncalf and girls swooned over him because their mothers told them to. Maurice and Gruff answered him, laughing and quipping, their words bawdy as they discussed the bridegroom's charms - and the bride's.

_At least we'll both look pretty together, _Arthur thought. Catalina was so tiny that even a small man would seem tall, standing by her. Arthur wasn't small - well, he hoped not - but he still hadn't finished growing. He stood higher than his grandmother, of course but that wasn't saying much - Harry was only an inch shorter than her. He was shorter than their father and - what was worse - than their tall mother too. _Catalina will do wonders for my self-esteem. _

There was a tap on the door and the silk-and-velvet page appeared again. Arthur wondered where the others were off to - there was usually a swarm of them buzzing around like little bumbleebees bragging about how many brothels they'd been to.

"Come to have another taste of the prince, lad?" Maurice jeered.

The boy flushed but he bowed and said manfully, "My lord prince, the Princess of Wales wishes to see you."

Thomas stared. Gruff stared. Maurice, the supremely self-confident, stared. Then their eyes swivelled to Arthur. Then they swivelled back to the page. It was as good as a tennis tournament to see their eyes swivelling back and forth.

"Thank you," Arthur said coolly. "Does she require me to visit the Queen's apartments?" His mother had no private apartments of her own - his grandmother had her bedded in her own chambers, except when his father called for her.

"So please Your Highness, Her Highness is at the door. She desires to see you privately."

Well. That was... interesting. As far as he could remember, he'd never seen his mother privately. His grandmother had always hovered in the background - or had sent a trusted attendant to do the hovering when she was too busy.

Arthur jerked his head at his companions. They filed out of the room obediently. "You too," he told the page, who lingered. "Go."

"Shall I not announce Her Highness?" the boy asked.

"God above, she's my mother," he snapped, harsher than he'd intended to sound. "She hardly needs to be announced." Though it did give him a queer feeling as the page left and he strode forwards to open the doors.

_My mother, _he thought. _My mother's come to see me on my wedding day._ How strange it sounded.

She was standing in the little antechamber that opened onto his bedroom. She was radiant, as always. A vision in grey silk and thick ropes of black-and-white pearls in her hair and at her throat.

"Lady mother," he said awkwardly and bowed. Awkward. Awkward. He didn't like the feeling. Why was she here at all? Who'd sent her? His grandmother? That sounded unlikely. What was she after? What did she want?

There was a little smile playing on her lips, a sad smile. All her smiles were sad. "Her Grace was kind enough to grant me permission to visit you on your wedding morn," she said. "What could be more natural than for a mother to bless her son on such a day?"

That sounded logical enough. Reasonable. Pity that courts were not ruled by reason.

Her voice was hesitant as she said, "I wanted to see you. I- I was not sent."

"My lady mother," he began, but she had moved forwards swiftly and embraced him.

_Mother, _he thought drowsily as rested her head on his shoulder and a sweet fragrance - _lemon pies _he thought for one confused moment - enveloped him. It was embarrassing. It was awkward. He couldn't remember his mother ever embracing him and it felt so strange, so wrong as though it were some other woman, the sort of woman you could buy with a coin, holding him in her arms. He pushed her away and was sorry a moment later.

"My apologies," he said quickly and held out his arms, expecting her to rush at him again. That seemed like the sort of thing mothers liked. Perhaps he was lucky that his lady grandmother had never permitted him much contact with her - women's embraces were just so _awkward. _

But she only stood there and smiled. That same smile. It was- it was... well whatever it was he didn't like it. He wished she'd stop smiling. He wished she'd just go away.

"You look so like my brother," she said tenderly.

"Which?" he said automatically before remembering that it was hardly the most delicate thing he could have said.

She laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. "Oh... either. Both. Edward, Richard - they were just babes when I last saw them. Oh, perhaps not quite babes but... I never can remember their faces." Her voice was wistful.

_Then what made you say that I looked like your brother? _

"I remember their sweet little faces when they were at the cradle," she said. "But I never can remember them as boys, though I must have seen them. But I like to pretend that-" she stopped abruptly. "You must pardon an old woman's wandering mind, my son."

He bowed and murmured the appropriately courtly compliment to her youth and beauty. This was what he did best. Cater to old women.

"But when I see them in my dreams," she continued. "They wear your face. Yours and Harry's. My bonny brothers, my poor, lost little lads."

_My bonny sons, my poor, lost little lads. Not lost, no. Stolen._ An Arthur for an Edward, a Henry for a Richard. Tudor sons and York brothers, royal princes, lost and stolen. By the same woman, perhaps. They blurred together.

She leaned forwards and kissed his cheek. "I wish you much happiness and luck in your wedded life," she said formally.

"You are too kind, lady mother," he said. "My thanks." He thought about bowing but decided amongst it. He'd already swept her so many graceful bows that she must think that he was planning to be a dancing master.

She nodded and swept away. He had the feeling that he'd missed something.

* * *

><p>She glided in, like a sunbeam, through the great doors of the cathedral and a deep hush fell over all.<p>

_Pretty_, he thought vaguely, glancing at her as she walked down the nave. She was in something elaborate, white and gold with a swirl of pearls. Elaborate and... heavy, from the looks of it. He remembered what Margaret had once told him, after she'd finished posing for a court portrait in a heavily-jewelled bodice. _Near as heavy as a knight's breastplate, _she'd assured him and smacked him when he'd laughed. Catalina's wedding gown was even more thickly studded with jewels. As she came closer, veiled and on his beaming brother's arm, he decided that it was simply monstrous. It begged to be flung off.

She was standing beside him now, as tiny and delicate as a doll. She smiled shyly at him through the lace screen of her veil.

_"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony ..."_

And so he was finally being married. He tried to pay attention. Who was it, sniffling behind him? Not his grandmother, surely. Perhaps his mother?

_"I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, that ye confess it." _

He wondered whether her eyes were as blue as those of her portrait. Pity he'd never checked.

_"Wilt the have this Woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony?" _

But then - he'd never had time. True, she'd been with them a week but-

_"Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?" _

Oh. It was his turn.

"I will," he said and was pleased that his voice had come out loud and strong. Thomas had teased him, saying that he was as meek as a maiden and that the guests might mistake him for the bride when he spoke.

It had been his grandmother's doing, he thought resentfully as the archbishop turned to his bride. At every high banquet they'd held throughout the week she'd had the girl seated next to her, while he'd been seated with his sisters. She would keep Catalina engaged in conversation while nudging the other Spanish girls towards him. She'd tell him to dance with an Alita or a Margarita or one of the neverending stream of Marias. If her plan was to make him fall for one of his bride's ladies-in-waiting, it was a poorly-constructed one. Laughably transparent. The Queen of Castile had probably chosen her daughter's retinue with care - none of the Spanish ladies outshone their mistress in beauty.

_Perhaps she's getting old, _he thought, of his grandmother. Pushing those other girls at him, thinking that he was so hungry for love that he'd willingly-

"I will," she said and her voice rang as loudly as his had done. Perhaps... louder?

It was his turn again. Weddings seemed to take forever. Good thing that Catalina seemed healthy enough. He didn't want to have to go through the whole process more times than he needed to.

"I take thee to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, for fairer or fouler, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereunto I plight thee my troth."

"I take thee to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to be bonny and buxom at bed and at board, to love and to cherish, till death us depart, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereunto I plight thee my troth."

And then it was done - oh no, not quite. The archbishop was glowering at him because he'd made to throw back her veil as custom required at the end of the ceremony. There was still the matter of the rings.

_Bloody hell, _he thought resentfully as he brought out the wedding ring to be blessed by the archbishop. Rings and blessings and prayers and then some _more_ prayers. His grandmother loved prayers. The archbishop loved his grandmother.

_She'd better be as bonny and buxom as she promised to be, _Arthur thought irritably, as he knelt next to his bride. _I can think of a hundred better ways to waste a day than by a wedding. Maybe even a hundred and one. _

* * *

><p><em>A bedding's always the best part of a wedding.<em>

He was beginning to rethink that. He was beginning to miss the wedding-part of the business when he was confronted by the bedding. He was beginning to miss the ribald oaths and the bawdy jokes that had made his grandmother scowl. He was _definitely _missing the wedding cake.

The fireworks had been good too.

She lay in his bed, more like a doll than ever. She wore a silk shift, beautifully embroidered no doubt. The loosened waves of her long, red hair lay over her shoulders and her face was now as pale as her shift though she'd managed to smile for him.

He knew what Thomas would have called her - a maiden fit for ravishment. Thomas would know something of ravishment. He fancied himself a pirate.

_Would you have preferred Thomas? _he thought vaguely. Dashing Thomas with his snapping black eyes and his easy laughter. Damned Thomas.

"My lady," he said formally. He took her hand and brought it to his lips.

"My lord," she said and her smile was very sweet - if nervous.

There - he'd kissed her hand. Now he felt at a loss. _You're the lucky one, _he thought. _You just have to wait patiently and get ravished. I'm the one who has to do the ravishing. _Girls always got it better. Boys had to read Latin and Greek and fight with stupid swords and joust and girls... girls didn't have to do much of anything except have boys.

She must have read his thoughts for she took his hand and gently placed it on her breast. He couldn't have jumped higher if she'd poured a pot of scalding water over it.

"I did not mean to give offence, my lord," she said softly and he saw that she was blushing as hard as he probably was. _Redheads and blushes, _he thought wryly. _What a pair we must look now!_ "I only meant to- I mean, I-"

He smiled reassuringly at her. "Arthur," he said. "Not 'my lord', please. I would prefer if you would call me Arthur - as all my friends do."

_And a wife can be a friend? _her face said but she only said timidly, "I crave your forgiveness my- Arthur." She didn't like the sound of the word, it was clear. "Forgive me, my prince," she said. "But I am yet young to marriage. I hope I shall be more pleasing if you will but give me time to learn."

_That makes two of us._ Carefully, he withdrew his hand from her breast. "You have given no offence, my lady," he said, noting that she hadn't yet asked him to call her Catalina. "Indeed, were it but not for your initiative we would never have-" He stopped, realizing the implication of his words. "Are you tired?" he asked quickly.

"No," she replied. "Not in the slightest." She looked at him expectantly.

He climbed out of bed to extinguish the lights. "Well, I am." Now that was an elegant way to resolve the whole dilemma. He felt proud of himself for solving it so quickly. "It has been a long day and you will excuse me, my lady, if I am not in the mood for-"

_There is no elegant way to phrase this, _he thought. _It's damnably stupid, this whole business. If I were God I would have thought of a better way of bringing children into the world. _

He had expected her to look relieved. Instead she looked distressed. Either she was madly in lust with him - he rather doubted it - or the idea of their marriage going unconsummated distressed her. _There's another Queen Margaret in the making that I have in my bed, _he thought. Perhaps his grandmother would warm up to Catalina someday. Behind the pretty face, he sensed, she had a great deal of her mother and his grandmother in her. He pitied their grandchildren. If they ever managed to bring grandchildren out in the world.

He'd need to take Gruff up on his offer to visit the brothels.

"I crave your pardon, my l- my prince," she said. "But ought we not fulfil our duty? It is but a night's work and I have heard that it is not particularly... wearisome." She was a brave girl, to be sure, to make such a speech.

"It is but five minutes' work, my lady, not a night's," he said. "To take a night would require a-" Then he bit his tongue before he said something bawdy.

"Then perhaps we ought to-"

"My lady, you are licentious."

"I-?" she looked thoroughly bewildered. "Oh, my prince, you do mistake me-"

"Lust," he said solemnly. "It is a sin, my lady, a grave sin. My lady grandmother would not be pleased to know that you are of so lascivious a nature."

_Your lady grandmother would be even less pleased to know that you have not consummated your marriage, _Catalina thought resentfully. There was something queer about this boy. She raked her brains to find something to say. If the marriage went unconsummated, it would be blamed on her of course. A woman always got the blame while the man went free.

_Too unattractive for him, _they'd say. _Too cold, too frigid. _They'd whisper that there were greater powers at work, too. The English would take umbrage - did the Spanish think so little of the great alliance? Were they still waiting for a greater marriage for their virgin daughter? If the sheets were not stained with blood by the morrow, the Queen of England would want blood. She voiced this doubt.

"Oh, it's blood you want?" he asked nonchalantly. "There are ways and ways to draw blood, my lady, and only one of them involves a broken maidenhead."

That was rather frightening. "What ways would those be, my prince?" she asked pleasantly. Perhaps the boy liked talk of war, of spilt blood. They had told her that he was gentle and that he delighted in his books - but perhaps they had been misinformed. Boys usually loved bloodshed. Perhaps she ought to ask him about his triumphs on the jousting field or on the fencing court - he might like that.

He was rummaging among the things on a table nearby. He turned to her when he was done and waved a slender stiletto blade in his hand. She flinched automatically.

"This," he said quietly and walked towards her.

_I shall not scream, _she thought and clung to the sheets for dear life. _No matter what he does, I shall not scream._ She'd heard tales from her serving girls of men who liked their wives bruised and bloody and she'd pitied them and been duly grateful that her own betrothed was said to be so meek. Well if this was what was needed to uphold the great alliance - then so be it. She could bear it.

"This," he repeated dramatically, his face an inch from hers.

She shut her eyes and heard an yelp.

_It didn't hurt at all, _she thought and wondered why he'd yelped. She opened her eyes and saw him massaging his fingers.

"I hate blood," he said childishly. He chuckled when she blinked at him and then at the blood spatters on the sheets. "You should have seen me when I was a child and new to swords-"

She looked at his fingers and then the sheets and then burst out, "But that's _dishonest_! It's-it's-" she spluttered, unable to think of anything appropriate to the enormity of what he'd done. She'd have preferred it if he'd beaten her bloody.

_It's unconsummated! _she thought hopelessly. _But people will say- and what if he never consummates it? They'll want a child and oh lord, what shall I do? _

"It's less than five minutes' work," he said cheerfully. "And I really _am _tired, my lady." He slipped in beside her, grateful that the bed was so large. He would have not liked to awaken with her under him. That would be even more awkward than a private chat with his mother. "Good night, my lady, and sweet dreams."

_I hope you have nightmares, _she thought resentfully as he drew the curtains around their four-poster bed. _A nightmare with... blood since you hate it so. A sea of blood. And swords. Sharp, pointy ones wielded by virgins. _


End file.
